MAY 7TH 2015, THURSDAY
Evening Sato ignored the look from Rokurou's father as he was guided through the Ishihara household and into Rokurou's room on the second floor. Slamming the door shut behind them, Rokurou flopped down on the middle of the hardwood flooring. Sato stared at him for a while before the brawnier teen gave an order disguised as a question. "Take a seat?"
He complied, quietly positioning himself across from the club president, school bag set on his lap. "So, uh..." Sato started, looking around before continuing, "is this really where you study? In the middle of the room?"
Rokurou leaned back, planting his palms down behind him for support. "Is that a problem?" The boy's attitude annoyed Sato to no end. There wasn't even a desk or table or anything to make use of. Just the cold hard ground. It was easy to see why Rokurou was known as dash-two's biggest dunce.
Pulling his textbooks out from the bag, Sato set up the floor before them the way he always did for studying. Rokurou picked up the book closest to him and started to flip through it, but Sato snatched it out of his hands immediately. "Don't just take whatever you want... Let's start with your weakest areas so we don't have to worry about you failing those. What's your worst subject?"
Rokurou scratched at his ear before looking at the textbooks with a dull look on his face. He eyed the books for a couple seconds. "All of them." Sato groaned, to which Rokurou replied with a tired sigh. "I'm not going to force you to stay," He said. Sato stopped scribbling notes onto some random piece of paper stuck in a textbook to look up at Rokurou.
"Oh… uh, sorry. I didn't mean anything. You're just not being very cooperative." Sato lowered his brow. He wasn't even sure why he felt bad. Everyone always joked about Rokurou's shitty test scores... It wouldn't be nice to be known as the 'stupid one'. Even the teachers played fun about it. "Let's start with math. I'm pretty good at it so it should be no problem to explain."
MAY 8TH 2015, FRIDAY
Early MorningBa-dumTSSSSSS Sato awoke in a panic, falling away from the wall he was sleeping against as he gathered his surroundings. They had passed out in the middle of the study session. He pushed himself onto his feet and stretched his back, which was sore from being slumped over like that for so long. A paper stuck to his arm. He pulled it off and looked over at where the loud sound had come from. Rokurou was playing with a drumstick, seated behind the drum set in the corner, only boxers and a form-fitting black shirt on. An interesting way to go about getting him up. "Why do you have all these instruments in your room?" Sato asked, noticing the variety Rokurou had. There were the drums, a few guitars, a keyboard, and what looked to be some kind of woodwind.
"Isn't it obvious?" Rokurou tossed the drumsticks onto the ground and walked over to the door, twanging one of the strings on an electric guitar on his way there. "I like 'em. School's in ten by the way." Sato wanted to tell him that wasn't what he was asking, but Rokurou was already gone. It took Sato a moment to process the second part of what the prez said...
Ten minutes?! He literally just woke up! Sato didn't even know how long it took to get to school from Rokurou's place! This was going to the be the first time he was late in a year! Not wasting time, Sato gathered up all his books, shoving them carelessly into his school bag, before rushing out the door. Unfortunately Rokurou was right outside, and it was a direct collision. Sato was the only one to stumble. "Gotta go right now immediately!" Sato said, zooming through and out of the house. The Ishihara family seemed a little confused when they saw him, and Sato assumed they hadn't known he'd slept over. There was no time to explain.
Sato felt dirty. Not mentally, but physically. He'd done absolutely none of his morning ritual and he just felt shitty. Not to mention passing out with his nose actually in a book. Luckily, class was finally over, and he was free to go home and take a shower or something. He was set to leave, but then he noticed Rokurou enter the room. It was at that moment Sato decided to join the crowd tomorrow.
"Hey man," Rokurou said, locking Sato into the interaction. "I think you have some of my shit. One of the teachers bitched me out because I didn't have my notes or whatever."
Sato fished out some papers and handed them over. He'd taken them by accident that morning, mistaking them as his own considering his writing was on them. "Well, they're really
my notes, but here. Don't lose them."
Rokurou flipped through the papers for whatever reason before flashing Sato a thumbs up. He turned to leave. "Hey," Sato blurted out, eyes to the floor, stopping the older boy before he could exit the classroom. Rokurou raised one eyebrow in response. "Do you want to study again tonight? You definitely still need it."
Rokurou gave a little grin, the same kind from yesterday. "Sure, man. I appreciate it."
"Alright, I'll meet you at your place in an hour or so. I already know we're going to be up until two figuring out trigonometry again." Sato replied with his own Hashimoto type of smile.
MAY 9TH 2015, SATURDAY
Evening "
Oh won't you cover my skin with your sun-kissed light,"
It was the weekend and Sato was doing something he hadn't done in a while: karaoke. After spending yet another night trying to absorb as much material they could in one sitting, Rokurou decided to take him and a few of the other archery guys out to sing, not study. Everyone seemed to be really into it except for Sato. The teen was fixated on something else entirely.
"
There's a bonfire burning tonight,"
Maybe it was some weird burn-out aftermath from studying too hard, but Sato's eyes couldn't not focus on anything more than the movements of the others in the room. The way his lips moved as he followed the lyrics, the motion of their hands, the sway of shoulders,
"
We could be all right,"
But he wasn't really registering what he was looking at it. The only thing his mind could fathom were the words ringing in his head. They weren't the words being sung or the things his eyes followed, but a familiar, yet unplaceable, voice.
"
Evaline, Evaline, Evaline, Evaline..."
Except he couldn't even understand what was being said. All that he processed was a ringing in his ears and a disconnect in his being.
"Hey!" Sato snapped back to reality, blinking twice, and turned to the voice. Rokurou had seated himself beside Sato, trying to catch his breath. "I've been belting it for six songs now! Get up there and sing some, Sato!" Rokurou said, pointing back over to the karaoke machine. While he came without the intention of actually singing anything considering how bad he was at it, Sato pushed himself up regardless and searched for a good song.
MAY 10TH 2015, SUNDAY
Midday With midterms the next day, Sato was studying yet again. He couldn't justify taking the day off after having wasted the other day singing karaoke. While Sato personally felt he was pretty set, it wouldn't hurt to review everything one more time and helping some of the other archery kids while he was at it seemed a good idea. Studying with others was a lot more tolerable than doing it alone. Besides, tutoring Rokurou was actually proving to be good for his own studies. Explaining the material to such an idiot took some work, after all.
Though his pen moved, his head wasn't in it. All the kanji became unintelligible lines after a while so Sato just leaned back in his chair and stretched, closing his eyes for just a second. He couldn't shake the feeling that something big was going to happen to him soon, and it kept distracting him from what he was trying to focus on. That feeling yesterday…it had to have some kind of meaning. Or maybe he was just overthinking it. Regardless, he wasn't going to get anything meaningful done, so Sato looked around the library for no reason. He spotted that Dragunov guy from Drama club, but nobody else really stood out. With a sigh, Sato returned his attention to the table.
It wasn't too shock, but everyone was distracted from their books by whatever was on their phones. Sato stared at them boredly before one of the girls passed a hot pink cellphone over to him. He tried his best to hide his surprise when he saw a photo of 'Saki'. He scrolled through the photo album, looking at all the photos of people. There was that Noboru kid doing some anime pose in the mall (shirtless), some photos of a kid in the park swinging weapon. Some of them weren't too bad but others gave him some second-hand embarrassment. Sato passed the phone back to the girl after he was done.
"I can't believe they'd hire a drag queen at the maid cafe," One of the guys said.
"It's so creepy!" A girl replied. "But did you see that loser at the mall? What a weirdo. Can you not bleed on us?" And the others repeated things of the same fashion, mentioning other instances of such weird people.
"Sato," Rokurou addressed him, arm propping up his chin. The inkling of a smirk on the corner of his lips. "Lame, right?"
Sato looked up from the table. "Yeah. I can't believe they don't have anything better to do than go freak it up in public." He couldn't read the expression on Rokurou's face and it annoyed him. The whole conversation at the table annoyed him. Maybe it was because they were addressing what he had done as 'creepy' and 'disgusting', but everyone talking shit about random people doing what they wanted to do pissed him off. He rose from his seat, chair squeaking a bit as it slid backwards. "I'll be right back," He said.
The teen walked away from the table, books in hand, and over to some random book case to give the illusion of looking for a new material. Unfortunately he ended up in math hell, which was the subject he'd went over the most with Rokurou. He wonder down the bookcase before noticing a familiar girl. Though he knew it was kinda creepy, he couldn't help but look at the question she was whispering about. It took him a moment, but it was easy enough to solve. "Y is 2. You missed a step here," Sato said, pointing to the equation Otonashi had been working on.
"Ah… forgive me for butting in, Otonashi." The boy gave a little bow, just in case she still deemed him rude for his intrusion. "If you don't mind me asking, what year are you in? This stuff seems pretty basic."
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